A striking coastal garden. The elements aligned for near perfect shooting conditions too; just enough blue sky between cloud activity overhead and an onshore breeze ensuring motion through all the elegant, long grasses which waved and nodded obligingly for the camera.

This garden was absolutely looking its winter best. All weathered and sun-bleached coastal colour along with rusted seedheads. Beautifully designed and such a calm space to spend time. I’m fascinated to see how this garden is transformed with the blooms of spring and summer colour.

On the day I photographed here for https://www.graduatelandscapes.co.uk/ I was layered up with thermal leggings and a heavy winter down coat. A sensible call on my part, as shooting to get the best angles and perspectives involved lots of laying out prostrate on cold decking and concrete. My preference is not to use a tripod where possible and, instead, lunge and contort into the best position for capturing the image. It can be quite the workout.

A genuinely fabulous shoot, with only negligible human interaction as the garden maintenance team made busy around me, tweaking and trimming. It did get momentarily noisy at one point however; a serendipitous ( & bloody noisy! ) goose migration overhead had me almost sustaining a whiplash as I jerked my camera skyward to snag their wonderful chevron formations. They were having a proper sky party, those cacophonous birds.